Calvert
03-31-2010, 11:27
Hello,
I recently set up a new planted tank and am wondering... is my KH too high? It's 10 degrees. While I guess that isn't horrible, it is out of the range of the plants of have, which is typically 3-8.
It's only been about 2-3 weeks, so I don't much of a baseline to go off of, but growing seems to be going well. I noticed a problem with 2 out of my 3 red cryptocoryne plants "melting" away, but after looking closely at why the 1 seemed fine compared to these 2 I noticed that the roots of the 1 good crypt were slightly exposed. So I slightly pulled up the other 2 crypts to do the same and they seem to fairing better.
Micro sword, abubias nana, water sprite, cabomba all are growing well. In the case of cabomba and water sprite, both have grew to the top of the aquarium and I have already trimmed the cabomba down a couple times. I had a batch of anarcharis, but those all "melted" down within a week and I just mailed it in on those and removed them all. 2 out of my 3 java ferns had a good bit of black spot algae on them but I have sinceI trimmed the offending leaves off. It should be noted that the 2 infected ferns came to me with the algae already on them.
Tank is a 75g with a fluval fx5 with biomax in all 3 media baskets. I started the tank up with tap water with a conditioner/dechlorinator added and then followed the "new tank startup" instructions on the bottle of the Cycle product (forget the name brand) to hopefully jump start the biological filtration a bit, but I understand it most likely doesn't do as much as advertised (i.e. immediately cycles). 3" of ecocomplete substrate and a pressurized co2 system at a ph controller controlled 7.0 ph (according the the co2 charts a 10 kh with a 7.0ph is approx 30ppm, which is why i keep the ph there). Also running a uv sterlizier (coralife turbotwist 9w) 24/7 off a maxijet 600 powerhead, changing 15 gallons of water twice a week, 108w t5h0 (1x10000k and 1x6700k) for 9 hours and ammonia, nitrates and nitrates at, or as close as my eyes can tell on the color chart, to 0.
I'm not doing any ferts as of now and since startup but that is changing today as I have an order of a few bottles of flourish coming in.
Fish load is fairly small... 2 angels (had them previously in a 29g for the last couple years), 8 rummynose and 4 corys. All fish are doing great. Will probably pick up another half dozen rummy's some day, but not for a little while. That'll be it, though. Again, my KH is out of the typical range listed for rummy's and angels, though.
Anyways, should I worry about lowering my KH? I know I there are ways to lower my KH, such as mixing in RO water with my tap, but I'd like to avoid that if possible as it'll be a hastle... but would consider it since I want good conditions in my tank, both for the plants and fish.
Anything else to recommend I check for/do?
I recently set up a new planted tank and am wondering... is my KH too high? It's 10 degrees. While I guess that isn't horrible, it is out of the range of the plants of have, which is typically 3-8.
It's only been about 2-3 weeks, so I don't much of a baseline to go off of, but growing seems to be going well. I noticed a problem with 2 out of my 3 red cryptocoryne plants "melting" away, but after looking closely at why the 1 seemed fine compared to these 2 I noticed that the roots of the 1 good crypt were slightly exposed. So I slightly pulled up the other 2 crypts to do the same and they seem to fairing better.
Micro sword, abubias nana, water sprite, cabomba all are growing well. In the case of cabomba and water sprite, both have grew to the top of the aquarium and I have already trimmed the cabomba down a couple times. I had a batch of anarcharis, but those all "melted" down within a week and I just mailed it in on those and removed them all. 2 out of my 3 java ferns had a good bit of black spot algae on them but I have sinceI trimmed the offending leaves off. It should be noted that the 2 infected ferns came to me with the algae already on them.
Tank is a 75g with a fluval fx5 with biomax in all 3 media baskets. I started the tank up with tap water with a conditioner/dechlorinator added and then followed the "new tank startup" instructions on the bottle of the Cycle product (forget the name brand) to hopefully jump start the biological filtration a bit, but I understand it most likely doesn't do as much as advertised (i.e. immediately cycles). 3" of ecocomplete substrate and a pressurized co2 system at a ph controller controlled 7.0 ph (according the the co2 charts a 10 kh with a 7.0ph is approx 30ppm, which is why i keep the ph there). Also running a uv sterlizier (coralife turbotwist 9w) 24/7 off a maxijet 600 powerhead, changing 15 gallons of water twice a week, 108w t5h0 (1x10000k and 1x6700k) for 9 hours and ammonia, nitrates and nitrates at, or as close as my eyes can tell on the color chart, to 0.
I'm not doing any ferts as of now and since startup but that is changing today as I have an order of a few bottles of flourish coming in.
Fish load is fairly small... 2 angels (had them previously in a 29g for the last couple years), 8 rummynose and 4 corys. All fish are doing great. Will probably pick up another half dozen rummy's some day, but not for a little while. That'll be it, though. Again, my KH is out of the typical range listed for rummy's and angels, though.
Anyways, should I worry about lowering my KH? I know I there are ways to lower my KH, such as mixing in RO water with my tap, but I'd like to avoid that if possible as it'll be a hastle... but would consider it since I want good conditions in my tank, both for the plants and fish.
Anything else to recommend I check for/do?